Gosling:The altitude is one thing- if Angry Birds Space has taught me anything, satellite orbits can oval a little bit without hitting land. It's a decaying speed that's going to worry me a lot. We're at 7.65 right now; no idea what it's 7.65 of, but there you go.

North Korea's launch center looks like a rejected set from a 60s bond movie. You just have to know Kim Wong Biggun saw a Bond movie and told his space guys "I want it to look like that, and no, I don't care what purpose or function it may serve if any, but that's how it must look."

BTW one worrisome thing is that it's on a polar orbit. Meaning it's orbiting over the poles, whereas most stuff orbits going from west to east. A tumbling satellite moving the same direction as everything else, would be bad, but at least it would be moving the same direction. This is flying on an orbit that transects usual orbits. So anyone with a satellite that is at the right, or wrong if you prefer, height is now running lots of numbers hoping the Korean satellite doesn't end up on collision course with their satellite. What's more if the tumbling is causing an exaggerated orbit, that could well get worse which makes all those calculations even more fun.

Yesterday, NASA published a composite photo of the world at night. At least I hope it was a composite. If not they have connections that I don't even want to think about. But I digress.

The photo showed nighttime lights throughout the world. A comparison can be drawn by the density of nighttime lights and industrialization/civilization. North Korea, especially in comparison with South Korea, is black. No lights, no electricity, no modern infrastructure. Except for a small spot at their capitol. How do they successfully build and launch a 3 stage missile? Not saying that its BS, but just hard to believe. They are at a starting iron age civilization.

smells_like_meat, it's because instead of spending money on infrastructure, they're spending it on things like this. And the military. And a posh lifestyle for dear leader and the generals. Making sure your people have decent infrastructure and a livable civilization is just frivolous spending to them.

smells_like_meat:The photo showed nighttime lights throughout the world. A comparison can be drawn by the density of nighttime lights and industrialization/civilization. North Korea, especially in comparison with South Korea, is black. No lights, no electricity, no modern infrastructure. Except for a small spot at their capitol. How do they successfully build and launch a 3 stage missile? Not saying that its BS, but just hard to believe. They are at a starting iron age civilization.

They have the technology to wire up North Korea. They just don't have the funds or the inclination.

North Korea isn't some country that is just inconvenienced by poverty. It is a country ruled by a select few who like keeping the lights off everywhere but in their houses. They saw what happened in China and Russia when you okayed reforms to allow people an easier life with more of a voice. They prefer to be more wildly powerful than anyone.

Think about it. If you were an asshole and you ran your own country where you could literally make anyone do anything you wanted them to do... would you care if they had lights at night? Hell no.

The NK leadership is happy with their early 20th century lifestyle ergo NK is happy with it.

JonnyG:Apparently, it's traveling at just over 17,000 mph. I wonder if this is normal for satellites?

Yep, usual speed for something in low earth orbit is between 17,000 and 18,000 mph. And as for catching it while it flew over head, well it's too small but if you're away from manmade light, like out in the country, and it's the right time of night and all, you can easily see the ISS go over head.

Faddy:Hi Best Korea, that fancy new satellite is nice and all but unfortunately it is "spinning out of control" so we are going to have to destroy it.

LoveAmerica

I'm thinking the "spinning out of control" press release will be followed by the press release announcing that it has "crashed" into some other space junk and been destroyed. Oops. Bad luck, that, Best Korea.

crazytrain:North Korea's launch center looks like a rejected set from a 60s bond movie. You just have to know Kim Wong Biggun saw a Bond movie and told his space guys "I want it to look like that, and no, I don't care what purpose or function it may serve if any, but that's how it must look."

north korean space agency

I was looking at the pictures and why is there a picture of Robocop on a white horse ?

azpenguin:smells_like_meat, it's because instead of spending money on infrastructure, they're spending it on things like this. And the military. And a posh lifestyle for dear leader and the generals. Making sure your people have decent infrastructure and a livable civilization is just frivolous spending to them.

With the right leadership and system of government, they could be just as successful as Japan or any of the Asian Tigers. It's a great injustice those people are suffering when they have that kind of potential.

Gosling:North Korea had better hope to hell that that ISN'T a nuclear warhead, and if so, that it doesn't hit something and go blooey. If it even so much as falls in a random spot in the Mauritanian desert, if it detonates, Kim's ass will be joining it in Mauritania for all the Western missiles blowing it there.

At this rate, it's not likely to hit anything on Earth. The bigger danger is that it will hit Alpha Centauri and spark some kind of interplanetary war.

Gyrfalcon:Gosling: North Korea had better hope to hell that that ISN'T a nuclear warhead, and if so, that it doesn't hit something and go blooey. If it even so much as falls in a random spot in the Mauritanian desert, if it detonates, Kim's ass will be joining it in Mauritania for all the Western missiles blowing it there.

At this rate, it's not likely to hit anything on Earth. The bigger danger is that it will hit Alpha Centauri and spark some kind of interplanetary war.

It hit perigee, the lowest point in the orbit. Now it's headed for apogee, the highest point, then it'll be down to perigee. Part of orbital mechanics is the high and low points of an orbit. And if you notice the perigee and apogee changing orbit after orbit? Your orbit is bad and your satellite is about to feel bad.

It hit perigee, the lowest point in the orbit. Now it's headed for apogee, the highest point, then it'll be down to perigee. Part of orbital mechanics is the high and low points of an orbit. And if you notice the perigee and apogee changing orbit after orbit? Your orbit is bad and your satellite is about to feel bad.

WhyteRaven74:JonnyG: Apparently, it's traveling at just over 17,000 mph. I wonder if this is normal for satellites?

Yep, usual speed for something in low earth orbit is between 17,000 and 18,000 mph. And as for catching it while it flew over head, well it's too small but if you're away from manmade light, like out in the country, and it's the right time of night and all, you can easily see the ISS go over head.

ISS went over my town tonight at about 6:20pm. I dragged the whole family out to watch it. It was visible (VERY visible, magnitude of -.5, similar to Venus) for a couple minutes until it passed into the earth's shadow and faded to nothing. ISS orbits the earth every 90 minutes or so. The Korean POS is a little higher and much more elliptical, so it would appear to me moving slower if you were watching for it. It takes maybe 100 minutes to orbit. It is polar while the ISS isn't quite.

It hit perigee, the lowest point in the orbit. Now it's headed for apogee, the highest point, then it'll be down to perigee. Part of orbital mechanics is the high and low points of an orbit. And if you notice the perigee and apogee changing orbit after orbit? Your orbit is bad and your satellite is about to feel bad.

About how much flux in apogee and perigee would one be comfortable with before one got worried? Using the 505.6/588.3 numbers quoted here. How far could you get away from those before you need to duck and cover?

Gosling:WhyteRaven74: Gosling: And the arrow just started going up. Phew.

It hit perigee, the lowest point in the orbit. Now it's headed for apogee, the highest point, then it'll be down to perigee. Part of orbital mechanics is the high and low points of an orbit. And if you notice the perigee and apogee changing orbit after orbit? Your orbit is bad and your satellite is about to feel bad.

About how much flux in apogee and perigee would one be comfortable with before one got worried? Using the 505.6/588.3 numbers quoted here. How far could you get away from those before you need to duck and cover?